I entered a room in which people were still milling about some conversing in quiet voices.\u00a0 The room was full, almost crowded.\u00a0 That surprised me a bit considering the short amount of time that had been available to get the news out.\u00a0 I strolled among the attendees not addressing any one of them, but hearing their words as I passed.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always rode too fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the truck driver.\u00a0 People like that should be kept off the roads.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStill, if he had been more careful he could\u2019ve gotten out of the way.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know how many times I told him he should take that advanced riders\u2019 course.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was always afraid of the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut he rode in it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe would have been okay if he\u2019d been in a car.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all make our choices.\u00a0 He knew it was dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was the bike.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was in his own lane.\u00a0 It was the trucker.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was nobody\u2019s fault.\u201d\u00a0 A tall man in black leather spoke.\u00a0 His voice was subdued, but deep and heavy with authoritative finality, \u201cIt was just time.\u201d<\/p>\n
None replied.\u00a0 Some nodded silently, others looked away or wandered off.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t until they began to seat themselves that I noticed him there, lying in the open box at the front of the room.\u00a0 I\u2019ve often thought it was silly the way people say, \u201cHe looks so good, so peaceful, like he\u2019s just sleeping,\u201d but he did look good.\u00a0 He seemed peaceful as if at rest, his head turned sideways on the pillow and one hand resting gently on his chest.\u00a0 He looked like he was just sleeping.\u00a0 They had done a really fine job.\u00a0 I wondered how his ride must look.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure they didn\u2019t spend any effort there.\u00a0 In another time they may have put him into the ground with his mount, but not these days.<\/p>\n
I was truly uncertain of what I was feeling as I gazed into his now still and silent face.\u00a0 What makes up our grief?\u00a0 I did feel somehow alone, lonely.\u00a0 There was, to be certain, a sense of loss and regret for the tasks unfinished, the love unspoken, the stories and music that had never made it out of his head and now would rot below the earth.\u00a0 There they would stay unheard, unshared, trapped within this disintegrating cell from which life had departed.\u00a0 But, then, there was at once a sense of peace, a contentment, an awareness that the fight was over, the struggle finished, the pain forever gone.<\/p>\n
I was so immersed in my thoughts that I was almost startled when she stepped to the front of the platform only about eight feet from me.\u00a0 She was a beautiful young woman, not just in face and form but from deep within.\u00a0 Oh, she had beauty of face and form, there was no doubt of that, but something more issued from within her very being.\u00a0 Every smile, every dance of her eyes, the caring tone of her voice brought with it an almost mystical beauty.\u00a0 There had long been a special relationship between them.\u00a0 It was not father-daughter, she had all the parents she needed and he had daughters enough.\u00a0 It was not even an uncle-niece relationship, it was more like they were truly, well, friends.\u00a0 She could have talked, I\u2019m sure, endlessly with anyone without repetition, condescension, ridicule, or distance; but to him it was always a special time.\u00a0 He seemed to revel in their conversations.\u00a0 She was either extraordinarily wise beyond her years or had an unnatural ability to draw wisdom out of those about her.<\/p>\n
She began to sing, \u201cWhen peace like a river attendeth my way,\u201d and I was engulfed in calm tranquility.\u00a0 I closed my eyes.\u00a0 The sound of that voice had often transported me to heavenly places.\u00a0\u00a0 I chuckled quietly.\u00a0 How ironic that I would think of that now.<\/p>\n
His children filled the second row.\u00a0 Two of his sons sat solemnly side by side, their wives holding their hands.\u00a0 They stared stoically straight ahead with only an occasional twitch of the eye or quiver of the lip betraying an inner turmoil.\u00a0 How much they were like him and yet how different.\u00a0 They had both chosen lives of full time service to the Church and to Jesus Christ, and he was pleased and grateful for that.\u00a0 The two younger did not contain their feelings so well.\u00a0 Each of them sat in shocked silence, their expressions betraying hidden questions of future and past, the conflicted, unanswerable relationship of youth and mortality.\u00a0 How much they were like him in his youth!\u00a0 The one who seemed to struggle most for his acceptance was perhaps most like him in choosing his path with apparent disregard for others\u2019 wants and wishes.\u00a0 He was his own man and always would be.\u00a0 He held a special place of great pride in his father\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 The youngest would finish his journey into manhood without the guiding hand of his father, at least without his visible hand.\u00a0 Perhaps he would be the only one to follow his father into the service of the U. S. Marine Corps.\u00a0 He was in every way his father\u2019s son.<\/p>\n
One of the daughters was sobbing almost uncontrollably and another leaning trance-like into the comfort of her husband\u2019s arms, while a third sat numbly as the tears streamed down her cheeks disappearing unhindered into her neck and hair.\u00a0 The fourth sat quietly, no betrayal of emotion on her face, but only an occasional twitch from her left cheek, her arm wrapped tightly about his grandson by her side.<\/p>\n
His life partner sat quietly staring into nowhere in particular.\u00a0 I wondered if she was recalling how often he had told her, \u201cIf you see it happen, remember it only hurts for a moment.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe she was remembering how he scolded her when she didn\u2019t ride fast enough, or how his \u201csuggestions\u201d cut her heart.\u00a0 He was gruff in his communication and although not hard to get along with, he was sometimes painful to live with.\u00a0 They had married later, when he already had five children and life had taken its toll.\u00a0 They almost didn\u2019t make it, but when they did finally find their way, it was the marriage and friendship for which he had always longed.\u00a0 She was his best friend, his riding partner, and the love of his life.\u00a0 After he married her he had found the relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ that he had always claimed, and they had traveled that road together.\u00a0 She had waited outside the detention center for him, held his head when he cried and was ever ready and willing to go where he wanted to go.\u00a0 They had traveled many miles together and he was truly only complete with her.\u00a0 She was a strong woman and I was always greatly impressed by how fine she looked in black.<\/p>\n
Strangely, the other two women were there also.\u00a0 Whether only to comfort their offspring or to say their own goodbyes who could know, but they were there nonetheless.\u00a0 Scattered throughout the mourners were the faces of men who had met with him on Saturday mornings over the past several years, some still struggling with their addictions, some relatively free.\u00a0 He was free now.<\/p>\n
She finished the first song, and in the transition to \u201cI Know Whom I Have Believed\u201d she choked for just a moment.\u00a0 I glanced back at her.\u00a0 Tears were rolling down her face but the discipline of her music was strong and she regained her composure.\u00a0 The melodious soprano tapestry of her voice did not falter again.<\/p>\n
I turned back to look at the crowd, at a brother and a sister, one sister missing.\u00a0 He and his brother were close.\u00a0 Different roads had brought them to similar points.\u00a0 .<\/p>\n
The eulogies began and they were predictably unreasonable.\u00a0 They were filled with \u201calways\u201d and \u201cnever\u201d and flowers and perfume with a hint of truth but in volumes that exceeded reality.\u00a0 Finally I could contain myself no more.\u00a0 I began to mumble, first quietly, then audibly as I moved to the side of the room, just below the corner of the platform and spoke my own epilog in words that no one would hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was not a particularly good man, but he was usually an honest man.\u00a0 He did not do all that he could have, but, I suppose, he did more than he might have.\u00a0 He was open and forthright to a fault.\u00a0 He was at once generous and irresponsible.\u00a0 He laughed, but not often.\u00a0 He was a true stick-in-the-mud when sometimes others laughed and he would proclaim, \u201cThat\u2019s not funny.\u201d\u00a0 He cried when it was time to cry, but when the flames were high he did not take the time.\u00a0 He would drop everything to pick you up, but in the next instance, you may have been part of the everything he was dropping.\u00a0 He was only a man.\u00a0 He had no interest in getting in touch with his feminine side.\u00a0 Were there choices he could have made better?\u00a0 Oh, yes!\u00a0 Were there things that he did right?\u00a0 You be the judge.\u00a0 What has he left behind?\u00a0 What is going into the ground with him?\u00a0 Is this world a better place because he has passed this way?\u00a0 You judge.\u00a0 You judge, for he will do no more.\u201d<\/p>\n
The soloist had risen again and began to sing, \u201cI have one deep supreme desire.\u201d\u00a0 I wondered at how often our lives have not properly reflected what our hearts have sought.\u00a0 The tears were now flowing unhindered down her cheeks leaving darkened streaks upon the fabric of her dress, but her breath was sure and no hint of weeping intruded upon the rich resonance of her voice that echoed from every corner of the hall.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to be like Jesus.\u00a0 To this I fervently aspire; I want to be like Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 Just for a moment I found myself pondering the interesting mix of words and life.\u00a0 What would Jesus ride?<\/p>\n
They were filing past the container now.\u00a0 Some wept; some smiled.\u00a0 Some dropped a memory into the final bed of respite.\u00a0 A few reached out to touch his face.\u00a0 There was his brother and a sister, nieces and nephews, friends and those whom had been barely touched.\u00a0 It was then that I realized that not only was a part of him being left behind, but a part of each of them was going into the ground.<\/p>\n
As the people paraded out I stayed behind to watch the funeral director close the sarcophagus.\u00a0 I glanced back at the row of solemn men in black apparel.\u00a0 I was surprised.\u00a0 There was one I would not have picked to carry the pall.\u00a0 It was closed now and I made my way back to the doorway.<\/p>\n
I waited at the door as the procession formed.\u00a0 I would not go with them.\u00a0 I had no desire to watch them place him into the hole.\u00a0 The hearse was led by a large group of two wheelers riding in staggered column.\u00a0 What a beautiful sound they made as they fired up and began to roll.\u00a0 I have always loved the sound of a line of motorcycles winding up.<\/p>\n
As the last of the line rolled out of the parking lot I closed the door behind me.\u00a0 It suddenly occurred to me that in my thoughts I had been referring to him in the third person, not \u201cI\u201d or even \u201cwe\u201d, but \u201che\u201d.\u00a0 For just a moment it seemed the clouds parted and a flash of sunlight broke through.<\/p>\n
Well, that\u2019s it, I thought.\u00a0 That\u2019s the last of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s over.\u00a0 His time is done, but not mine.\u00a0 And I have a place that I must be.<\/p>\n
I turned to go, alone for the moment, but no longer lonely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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